I tried something last weekend. I watched the end of the Tigers-A’s game on Thursday, and then I stopped watching sports. I watched a couple minutes of NLCS Game 1, the last couple minutes of Monday Night Football, but none of the 12-hour sports binge watching that usually comes with first-round baseball or college football on Saturdays. I can’t say I totally took the weekend off from sports, because I watched a lot of Friday Night Lights and played a lot of NHL 12, but it’s an interesting experience, going from being as integrally connected to sports as I am to just going off it, cold turkey, the way I did last weekend. If you’re the kind of lunatic I am, the kind that sets up ESPN alerts for 18 teams across 10 leagues in six sports the way I do, I recommend unplugging and detoxing every so often. Because after a while you’ll get bored and remember why you can’t stay away.

I meant for this to be something of a truncated Crash Bag, but it wound up being the longest ever, so what do I know? On to your correspondence.

@andbaskin: “Worst/most annoying playoff commercial”

I’ve been partial to those Cougar Town spots. I must say, they’re starting to convince me to watch the show. I’m not sure I’ve seen a commercial that so clearly broadcasts that the program is absolute dreck, at least not since the Napoleon Dynamite cartoon from a couple years ago. I didn’t watch Cougar Town when it was on ABC, and if Courteney Cox weren’t in it, and Abed on Community didn’t like it so much, I’m not sure I’d have ever known that it existed. But I’m starting to turn on Cougar Town. It’s like Stockholm Syndrome.

I will say this–the show does seem to have a little bit of charming self-awareness, which is important for a comedy. But piling on the “we like wine” angle in the promos is almost certainly ill-advised. Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with wine, or liking wine. I’m more of a bourbon man myself, but I do enjoy the occasional glass of pinot grigio in certain situations. I’d even say that a healthy appreciation for social drinking is an attribute I like in a person, because if you go to a bar or a friend’s house, you’re either strengthening existing relationships or forging new ones, which is healthy for obvious reasons.

With that said, if you lead off with liking wine, you’re kind of saying that’s the most interesting thing about you. Which is kind of sad. Like, you don’t have other hobbies? Or skills? Or interesting stories? What kind of booze you like should be at most, the third or fourth-strongest self-identifier. Drew Magary wrote this week at Deadspin about people who lead off their Twitter bios with “Husband. Father.” and so on, and he hits the nail on the head–yes, that’s important, but it’s probably not something that’s going to make you sound interesting to other people.

I will say, however, that the wine fixation was far from the most interesting thing about the Cougar Town promos, at least to me. I had previously been unaware that Christa Miller was on that program. I have a heart-rending, paralysis-inducing crush on Christa Miller. Like, I hadn’t watched Scrubs in years, then started watching it again after channel-surfing into an episode she was in. I am completely unable to explain it, but it’s my cross to bear, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to start watching Cougar Town that I know she’s in it.

One last note. For some reason the MLB playoffs are particularly conducive to commercial oversaturation by TV promos, and there’s one every year that stands out. But if you surveyed 100 baseball fans over the age of 20 to name the greatest bad playoff TV promo of all time, I bet at least 80 of them would name Fox’s ill-fated 2003 drama Skin.

Need your memory jogged?

HIS FATHER IS THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY!

I know it’s been almost ten years, but I’ll sometimes ride the subway on weekends for hours, just sipping Diet Pepsi and screaming “HIS FATHER IS THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY!” at selected passersby. That line is “To be or not to be” for the boy band generation–it’s inspired.

And yes, that was the young Olivia Wilde, grabbing that role with both hands and choking it within an inch of its life.

So anyway, apparently Skin was supposed to be a modern-day Romeo-and-Juliet story between the daughter of a porn tycoon and a boy who…what, what was the thing about him? Oh, yes–HIS FATHER IS THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY!

One thing I never got–the production of pornography is, I’m pretty sure, perfectly legal in the United States, given the appropriate licensures. So why is Bruno Gianelli from The West Wing locked in a life-or-death struggle with the DA? Sure, there might be drugs or underage girls in this porn ring, but then wouldn’t he be the drugs guy or the underage girls guy and not the porn guy?

But because of that line, and because Fox showed that ad about once every 15 minutes during perhaps the most exciting tandem LCS round in the Wild Card era, I probably saw more of Ron Silver yelling that wonderful, immortal and completely idiotic line during the 2003 playoffs than I saw of Mark Prior.

Can you imagine how bad a pilot script must be in order for a producer somewhere to circle “HIS FATHER IS THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY!” and say to himself, “Yes, yes. This is the line that we’ll use in our trailer. This is the line that will prove our show to be thoughtful, current and engaging. This is the best line in our show!” Wow.

Anyway, I never watched the show, and apparently neither did anyone else, because Fox canceled it after three episodes, most likely because it made Crossing Jordan look like The Wire. If there’s one thing I want people to remember about baseball in the early 21st Century, it’s “HIS FATHER IS THE DISTRICT ATTORNEY!”

Damn, that’s fun.

@uublog: “Is there a correct rooting interest for Phillies fans in the NLCS, and why is it seppuku?”

@mferrier31: “if the offer existed, would you pull the cord on the Lee for J Upton deal? Y/ y not”

It depends on a ton of things. What kind of salary gets eaten, what ancillary prospects get tossed one way or the other, what the long-term plan is for the Phillies. We all know that a Lee for Justin Upton deal would probably involve the Phillies eating at least a little bit of Lee’s salary, plus some minor leaguers or spare parts changing hands (in that case, I’d love to get my hands on a minor-league center fielder named Evan Marzilli…), but both teams are dealing from a position of strength. The Diamondbacks can certainly field a competent major league outfield of Gerardo Parra, Chris Young and Adam Eaton, and the Phillies, I’m sure, can cobble together a starting rotation of Cole Hamels and the top-billed cast of Gus Van Sant’s Elephant, much less Roy Halladay, Vance Worley, Kyle Kendrick and Tyler Cloyd.

Yes, I’d do it.

What trading Lee for Upton represents is a bet.

Cliff Lee has been, over the past five years, either the best pitcher in baseball or close to it. Justin Upton, while he’s supposed to be coming into his prime at age 25, has a kind of average year on his resume in 2012, backing up a year in 2011 where he would have made a convincing argument to be the best player in the National League had Matt Kemp and Ryan Braun not been possessed by the spirit of Fuzzy the Avenger, Nordic god of hits. So Lee’s a sure thing, and Upton might be a perennial MVP candidate or he might be a league-average corner outfielder.

But Cliff Lee is nine years older than Justin Upton. And, though their remaining contracts are of the same length, Lee makes more than twice as much as Upton. And Upton’s having his fWAR cut by two thirds this past season is due in large part to roughly a full win’s worth of UZR noise. I say that because Upton has been pretty consistently an above-average defender in right throughout his career, through he was -2.1 runs this season. UZR is fluky from time to time, particularly in the outfield corners, and I’m willing to bet on Upton’s intelligence and athleticism rather than some narrative-driven damnation of one of baseball’s greatest young talents based on one of the most insane scorched-earth policy interviews in the history of lunatic things said by owners. Not on the level of Marge Schott Nazi armband crazy in the real world, but it was certainly that crazy from a baseball operations point of view.

So what’s the bet? Will Justin Upton be half as good as Cliff Lee over the next three years? Yes. Justin Upton is coming off the worst season of his life, and he’s 25. Cliff Lee is coming off what is, superficially, his worst season since 2007, and he’s 34. And he makes twice as much money. Yes, I’d trade Cliff Lee straight up for Justin Upton.

@DashTreyhorn: “What kind of Major League career would Merrill Hess (Joaquin Phoenix) from “Signs” had if he didn’t wash out?”

I don’t feel qualified to answer this question. I can’t judge mechanics or anything like that–I’m a writer, not a scout. But lucky for you, I do know someone who can. Please welcome, in his return to guest Crash Baggery, Crashburn Alley prospect impresario Eric Longenhagen.

I have a problem answering this question head on since it deals with an interpolated hypothetical. I don’t like to play the “What if this guy didn’t suck” game. It opens up too many other “what ifs.” All the “what ifs”, really. He did wash out. Despite that, it is interesting to think about Merrill Hess’ career, however short it may have been, and think about what sort of post-playing career he may have had after the events that unfold in Signs took place. We can do this by making inferences based on dialogue from the movie and even by evaluating the swing mechanics Hess displays in the movie’s climax. Let’s learn what we can one chunk at a time.

Who did Merrill play for?

The movie was set and shot in Bucks County, PA. We know Hess played close to home since the Army recruiter talks about being at some of his games. The three closest minor league teams to Bucks County? Lehigh Valley (not in existence for the film), Trenton and Wilmington. We know Hess had insane raw power (he hit several 500 ft home runs) but zero approach and serious issues with swinging and missing. How far does a player like that get? Ask Anthony Hewitt. I doubt Hess got to Double-A which eliminates Trenton and means he spent time in Wilmington, which has almost always been Kansas City’s High-A affiliate. Merrill Hess was a Royals prospect.

Why did Merrill fail?

Look at the swings he takes at the giant alien and it’s not hard to see why Merrill had strikeout issues. A high leg kick (which I think can cause timing issues with offspeed stuff) a pronounced arm bar and noise from the shoulders up when he swings…..these are all things that I’d see as red flags when scouting a prospect.

I’m going to piss some people off with this, I know, because I haven’t seen every baseball movie ever made.

I have, however, tackled this question before. I was bored a lot in class when I was in undergrad, and because I can’t draw, I never really found a lot of use in doodling in the margins. I did make lists. Sometimes, I tested my own knowledge, like naming the 27 member states of the European Union and the contesting teams in every World Series (which I could do) or the 100 members of the U.S. Senate (which I could not). Other times, I made predictions, like trying to pick the U.S. roster for the next World Cup, or choosing a team to win the next World Series (a question that I’ve answered formally since).

I also tried to pick an all-time fictional baseball team. Unfortunately, I threw that sheet out at the end of Political Science 341 my senior year, so we’ll never know what I picked. So here are the 25 players I’d take. Also, I’m including all baseball movies (I know the question says MLB, but if you’ve got a problem with a list of baseball movies that excludes Bull Durham and The Sandlot, you’re welcome to start your own column) so instead of absolute skill, I’m taking this team based on skill relative to league. And as much as I’d like to build my rotation around Anthony Michael Hall’s Whitey Ford from 61*, and even though Ken Griffey Jr., Carlos Baerga and Randy Johnson were in Little Big League, and even though Barry Bonds was in Rookie of the Year, I won’t use real players. Though major-leaguers playing fictional characters (Kevin Elster, Leon Durham, John Kruk) are eligible.

Starting Lineup
SS: Kelly Leak, The Bad News Bears. Deadspin ran an article last year that essentially makes Jimmy and Rade from Hoosiers out to be the greatest fictional athletes of all time. Kelly Leak is close behind them.LF: Benny Rodriguez, The Sandlot. He made the major leagues, which, relative to league, makes him far and away the best player in his pickup game. On a side note, Mike Vitar, who played The Jet, had essentially a three-film acting career: The Sandlot and two Mighty Ducks movies. Well done going all in on the Disney sports movies for kids in the mid-1990s. Wikipedia says he’s now a firefighter in L.A. So that’s cool.CF: Bobby Rayburn, The Fan. Man, this was a terrible movie, but Bobby Rayburn was made out to be the Ken Griffey Jr. of his time. He’d surely inspire similar devotion from me as from Robert de Niro.RF: Roy Hobbs, The Natural. Go ahead and argue.C: Jack Parkman, Major League II.I love David Keith. Not sure why. But I do.3B: Ray Mitchell, Angels in the Outfield. Anyone who’s good enough to be an All-Star *before* Christopher Lloyd shows up is okay in my book. He gets the nod over Roger Dorn for actually playing defense.1B: Lou Collins, Little Big League. Probably the most likeable movie athlete I can think of. Plus he went on to, along with Allison Janney, play out the greatest romance in television history. Great team leader, great contact hitter, great defensive first baseman.2B: Marla Hooch, A League of Their Own.Second base is by far the weakest position, and having a bat like Marla’s here, particularly down in the lineup, is huge.

Bench
C: Crash Davis, Bull Durham.To mentor our young staff ace. I wish I could carry three catchers, just to get Dottie Hinson on the team, but there’s not room.C: Dottie Hinson, A League of Their Own. Okay, fine. I can’t quit you, Geena Davis.OF: Willie Mays Hayes, Major League.Yes, two different outfielders played by Wesley Snipes are on this team. No, I’m not sure how that’s going to work.1B/OF: Pedro Cerrano, Major League.Like you wouldn’t want that power off the bench. Plus he’s a good clubhouse guy.IF: Danny Hemmerling, Angels in the Outfield. Need a good glove off the bench, plus this gives us six Oscar winners. Woulda been seven, but Alan Arkin was really good in Little Miss Sunshine. 2B: Mickey Scales, Little Big League.Screw you, Tanner Boyle.

Starting RotationAmanda Whurlitzer, Bad News Bears.So you’ve got the best pitcher in the league, and she throws a complete game every time out and pitches every game. You bet I’m going to add her. Though I really hope Bobby Rayburn doesn’t get as pissy when she doesn’t give up No. 11 as he did when Juan Primo held onto it. I would pay big money, by the way, to see her argue with Crash Davis on the mound.Nuke LaLoosh, Bull Durham. I own a Nuke LaLoosh shirsey. So he makes it, even if Tim Robbins had the least convincing delivery this side of Freddie Prinze Jr. Ha! And you thought I’d forgotten about Summer Catch!Kenny DeNunez, The Sandlot. Solid commitment to the fastball.Eddie Harris, Major League. Chelcie Ross, I’m pretty sure, copied his delivery from Jamie Moyer, even if Major League came out 20 years before Jamie Moyer old jokes were funny.Chet Stedman, Rookie of the Year. I want it on the record that a Gary Busey character wound up not being even close to the craziest pitcher on this team.

BullpenWhit Bass, Angels in the Outfield. If I managed a major league team, I’d give this speech after every game.

And while I know he was a starter in the movie, every bullpen needs a class clown, and Bass makes Roger McDowell look like Roy Halladay.Jim Bowers, Little Big League. Jonathan Silverman’s performance in this film is perhaps my favorite in any sports movie. Though Kurt Russell comes pretty close in Miracle.Rick Vaughn, Major League.I haven’t forgotten about Wild Thing, though I kind of like the idea of him throwing max-effort in high-leverage situations rather than trying to manage him over the course of a season.Duke Temple, Major League. Any reliever who leads the league in hit batters is okay in my book.Henry Rowengartner, Rookie of the Year.Funky butt-lovin‘.Mel Clark, Angels in the Outfield. Better him than Blackout Gatling. Hold me closer, Tony Danza.

And I’m sure that we can cobble together a coaching staff out of Billy Heywood, Lou Brown, Jake Taylor, George Knox, Larry Hockett and Jimmy Dugan.

Well, I can tell you this for sure–Laynce Nix is a quivering ball of muscle. Even though he’s by far the least objectionable of the three options on the field, we’re not talking about baseball here. Laynce Nix is built like a fire hydrant, or at least he would be if fire hydrants were constructed not of metal but of taut, bulging sinew. He’s so muscular he has no neck. Football players are so muscular they have no neck. Baseball players have necks, or at least a series of chins that connects the head to the torso, as was the case with Tony Gwynn.

Laynce Nix is not built like a baseball player. He’s built like a cartoon horse made out of concrete reinforced with steel. There are no doors in his house, only holes in the wall where he had to punch through like the Kool-Aid guy in order to get from room to room. He looks like someone squished Ivan Drago.

I bring this up because I can’t make him the F option, or the M option (which, in a healthy M, would involve more than a little F), because I’m terrified that he’d hurt me. Gotta kill him.

I’d rather go with Ty Wigginton for the F, because while he’s not particularly attractive, he seems like he’d be a kind and gentle lover.

Which leaves Kyle Kendrick to marry. For all the crap I’ve talked about him as a player–and he did his best to blow up that reputation this season–he seems like a decent guy. This is my relationship advice to those of you looking for a mate: prioritize kindness above all else. Everyone’s going to be ugly at some point, so you might as well stick with the person you get along with best. I think Kyle Kendrick seems like just such a man.

@gvntofly1021: “You must endure 1 of these on repeat for a week: ‘The Resistance’ or Mini-mart game footage. Which, and why?”

Mini-mart. Because he’s so bad you can start to enjoy it after a while if you know the outcomes have been predetermined. And because perhaps the worst thing about The Resistance is how quickly the novelty wears off upon repeated listening. That album went bad faster than a glass of milk left outside on a hot day. In Florida. Under the drainage line from a factory that produces paint thinner.

And because I’d make a series of jokes about being forced to listen to an album on repeat, but I’ll never do better than this.

@elkensky: “Do TS Eliot-Scott Proefrock jokes get old? I have a bullpen one set to “Should I, after tea and cakes and ices…” ready to go.”

Never. Proefrock jokes are always fun. Whenever the Phillies’ assistant GM is mentioned, I threaten to wear white flannel trousers and walk upon the beach.

Feel free to make your own John Mayberry jokes, vis-a-vis “I have heard the Mermaids singing, each to each/I do not think they will sing to me.”

@fotodave: “which rivalry is nastier: UGA/SC or phillies/mets? Who’s the most vile fanbase in baseball? In college?”

South Carolina-Georgia is kind of a rivalry, in that the Gamecocks and Bulldogs are in the same division, are in relatively close geographic proximity and have been fairly close competitively over the past decade, leading to some rather entertaining games. But let’s not kid ourselves–it’s a circle-the-calendar game every year, but it’s not even close to the nastiest rivalry in college football, or even the nastiest rivalry for either team. Both Carolina and Georgia have much greater antipathy for their respective ACC in-state rivals (Clemson and Georgia Tech, respectively) and Florida than they do for each other. There is one person, and one person only, for whom USC-Georgia is the rivalry game to end all rivalry games, and that’s me. I acknowledge my own weirdness and freely admit that I am completely out of step with Gamecock fan orthodoxy.

That said, it’s a much nastier rivalry than Phillies-Mets because it’s college football, and SEC football in particular. The idea that any baseball rivalry is as heated as even a middling college football rivalry is so laughable as to be offensive. Listen, I’m all for the domination of American culture by Northeastern Ivy League elitists, but saying that Yankees-Red Sox is the most heated rivalry in American sports? I think people say that because it’s kind of awkward to walk around on the street wearing a sandwich board that reads: “I AM THOUGHTLESS AND IGNORANT.”

Red Sox-Yankees is a media narrative. Sure, it’s a rivalry, but it’s a baseball rivalry, which means that any hatred is diluted over 19 games a season, plus playoffs, and not distilled into its purest form: four hours of unfettered physical violence once and once only every season, fueled by alcohol and repressed Confederate nationalism, expressed by crazy-eyed personages who have little to live for apart from college football. Red Sox-Yankees is bourgeois, soft, all bark-no-bite, a fraud perpetuated upon the American sporting public by insecure New Yorkers who realize their supposed cultural hegemony is a house of cards and insecure New Englanders who think their grating, drinking-orange-juice-through-a-tenor-saxophone accent is somehow charming, and think that you still get to bemoan years of futility from what has been, by far, America’s most blessed sports city over the past decade. Go take your affected everyman attitude and dump it in the Charles River, you insufferable, sniveling attention-mongers. But I still hope you love me one day, Bill Simmons.

We’re being bamboozled, America, into watching the baseballing equivalent of reading Oscar Wilde’s assorted quotations on his own cleverness. It’s boring, there’s too much of it, and for some reason we’re all too concerned with looking smart and cultured and with it that no one seems willing to call it out for the self-indulgent flotsam that it is. I’d sooner watch a cow try to lean its way through a barbed-wire fence. I’d sooner try to lean through a barbed-wire fence myself.

So I’d say that Yankees fans are probably the most vile in baseball–they’re everywhere, they’re loud, they’re ignorant and prone to absurd groupthink that reduces a game of random events to a morality play.

As far as college football, I’m going to have to with Florida. My fiancee had a roommate who referred to them as Jean Shorts Nation, which made me giggle every time. They’re loud, they’re self-entitled, they’re either rednecks or douchebag frontrunners, and for some reason, they never found it within themselves to condemn Brandon Spikes as the jockitch of a human being that he is. I would have said Miami or Southern Cal, but they don’t have any fans anymore now that it’s been more than 2 years since the last national title. I also would have said Penn State or Notre Dame, but I can’t mock them anymore–Penn State because I feel bad for the fans after the Sandusky Affair and Notre Dame because their fans are all in hospice care by now anyway. It’s just not sporting. LSU is up there too, but their obnoxiousness is so entirely insane it’s almost admirable.

@longenhagen: “Do you think it’s even possible for Ferris Bueller to have completed all those activity in one day

No. The Cubs game alone would eat up most of the afternoon, though we should assume that because they used a Ferrari, they went from place to place faster. But who cares? One day I want to have that much fun, or a girlfriend as hot as 1986-vintage Mia Sara.

By the way, Cameron Frye wearing a Gordie Howe jersey around Chicago all day is one of the all-time great underrated troll jobs of his time. I salute you, Cameron.

@fjrabon: “on a scale of 1-10 how excited are you about when the phils sign Bourn to 6 yrs 130 mill?”

@cwyers: “How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck was a member of the 2012 Phillies starting rotation.”

Lots of it. The Phillies like to go deep into games with their starting pitchers, and if you were rolling Halladay, Hamels and Lee out there 60 percent of the time, you would too.

Interesting that you should mention it, though, because the chic pitch for the Phillies right now is the cutter, which, you know, “wood” and “cutter” and…yeah, it was funnier in my head.

@JakePavorsky: “Say the MLB added an amnesty clause to their CBA right now. One Phillies player you would amnesty and why.”

Ryan Howard. Not even close. Not eeeeeeeeeeven close. I might take a gander at Papelbon, but Howard is signed for more money and contributes less. If it’s not the worst contract in baseball, I struggle to think of one that beats it.

@pinvert: “zip hoodie or pullover?”

Depends on the occasion. For around-the-house wearing and vacation (think hoodie and shorts on the beach in September), it’s got to be the pullover. I visited Ithaca College when I was a junior in high school and bought a hoodie there that was two sizes too big then and, despite my having grown some since then, is still two sizes too big now. It’s my favorite article of clothing–it’s big, it’s warm, it’s like wearing a hug.

But if you’re going out, you should probably go with the zip-up. I myself prefer solid color zip-ups to ones with patterns or writing, though everyone’s different. It’s important to keep in mind that when you leave the house, hoodies are outerwear, so if you have to take it off when you get to where you’re going, you’re going to look like a total doofus if you have to pull it over your head. Better to just unzip. You lose a little bit in the keeping warm department, but that’s why I prefer pullovers for more casual occasions.